Now, as it appears, the U.S. Olympic athletes have indeed completely taken over the stage of DWTS and the hearts of fans. After reigning supreme in the City of Love and bagging Olympic medals, Ilona Maher and Stephen Nedoroscik are aiming for a new trophy going beyond the athletic realm. Eyeing the Mirror Ball Trophy of the 33rd season of Dancing With the Stars, the athletes are now making sure to dodge the eliminations and move towards the finals. While all the pairs are continuing their fight for the final spot, a separate battle is going on between the Olympic stars.

Coming out of the fantasy-filled Disney week, the DWTS participants turned on their spooky personas as they stepped into Week Seven of the show. After all, it was the Halloween special episode. The theme for the episode of the seventh week was ‘Halloween Nightmares Night’ and was aired on October 29. The dancing duos on one hand had to pull off a fiery performance on the stage and on the other hand had to face their own fears. The dancers were assigned to pick up one unlearned dance that would be driven by their biggest fear or nightmares. 

Taking up this hauntingly daunting task, Ilona and Alan performed on Miley Cyrus’ song Psycho Killer. The rugby player chose to face her fear of ‘psycho killers’ on the stage. Following the steps of Tango, Maher pulled off the correct steps and finally concluded the act by killing Alan in the act. Alongside praises, she received 8 from each of the three judges scoring a total of 24 out of 30. On the other hand, Nedoroscik too was ready to leave fans stunned. Matching steps on Hidden Citizens’ I Ran (So Far Away), Rylee and Stephen faced the fear of darkness and left fans and judges in awe. He secured 28 in the episode.

Stephen’s makeover to get into the skin of darkness has left fans in awe. In a recent Reddit post, fans have resorted to discussing the massive amount of likes that the DWTS stars have been gathering with their ‘haunt-astic’ performances. In the episode, Nedoroscik reigned supreme. Interestingly, he also took over the Rugby player in the social media world. The official Instagram page of Dancing With the Stars shared snaps of the duos’ performances on Instagram. And fans could not keep calm and chose to hit the like button and flock to the comment sections sharing their opinion on the performances. 

On one of their posts, Ilona Maher could be spotted with her dance partner Alan Bersten slaying the killer look in a blue attire. Their pictures captured the hearts of fans as they gathered more than 164k likes and more than 1.1k comments. However, fans were going gaga over Nedoroscik’s prosthetic makeup and fierce stunts on the Nightmarish Halloween special episode. The Instagram post dedicated to Rylee Arnold and Stephen earned a staggering 173k likes. 

Although Stephen took over Maher, the amount of likes the Olympic athletes have gathered is way more than the likes garnered by the post dedicated to the other four duos. Such statistics are leaving fans with the assumption that the two Paris stars would definitely lock their seats for the final showdown. However, the paths the athletes had to cross to reach this pedestal did not always seem like a cakewalk.

Stephen Nedoroscik’s and Ilona Maher’s journey to the zenith was never a path full of roses

Securing a medal and breaking the 15-year-old drought for US men’s gymnastics was not that easy for the ‘Pommel Horse Guy’. While being an elite athlete already comes with a bucket full of challenges, and demands utmost dedication and hard work, it became tougher for Nedoroscik. He had to fight against his eye ailments before he could battle against all other odds to win his individual bronze medal. He suffers from ailments such as Coloboma and Strabismus. Coloboma affects the development of the eye and leads to light sensitivity and visual problems. Strabismus often causes double vision. 

Not only had Nedoroscik overcome these issues in the gymnastics arena but also chose to prove his worth in the dancing realm. And this was the fear that Stephen decided to conquer again on Halloween night. Due to lack of vision, darkness has always haunted the gymnastics star. And he impersonated the same darkness and won over it on the stage performing without his spectacles.

Ilona Maher on the other hand had to fight her own battle against the backlashes and controversies she had to deal with for not fitting the stereotypical beauty standards. From being termed as ‘masculine’ to ‘obese’, Maher had to deal with it all. This further affected her mental health. However, she learned to prioritize her mental well-being and her sport before others’ opinions. Following the learning curve, she went on to win her first Olympic medal this Summer Olympics.